Monday Minutes: Secure Passwords per Patron Category

by Kelly McElligott on Dec 13, 2021

This week Jessie and Kelly talk about a new feature sponsored by NorthEast Kansas Library System which will allow libraries to increase security in passwords by Patron Category.

System Preferences

Koha has two system preferences that allow libraries to determine a bit about the security of logins for the library's patrons and staff. These system preferences are:

MinPasswordLength-this allows libraries to determine the minimum password that can be set for patrons/staff

RequireStrongPassword-Require/Don't Require a strong password for staff and patrons (must contain at least one digit, one lowercase, and one uppercase).

Now along with these two system preferences, libraries can customize these options by Patron Category.

Patron Category

In the Administration Module, under Patron Categories. A library can create a new patron category or edit an existing one.

There will be two new options available within each patron category:

Min Password Length: If a library would like to make this patron category's password length different from the System Preference, they could set a number in this field. This would make this patron category need to have a longer or shorter password length.

Require Strong Password: A few options exist for this one, a library can choose to have this follow what the library has in the system preference or set it to YES or set it to NO.